


to raze, to sow, to reap

by jaganlekhani



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 8x04, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Other, Unbeta'd, can we please just have some girl talk please, jonsa is not super heavy so if that's not your cup of tea dont worry, kinda sad ig but i believe in my girls, not a "happy ending" but it be how it be, you think these two aren't bffs??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 08:23:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18796603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaganlekhani/pseuds/jaganlekhani
Summary: She did not know how she got here, to her Lady’s chambers. She did not know a great many things, it seemed, in the haze that had dominated her every sense in the past few minutes. Or perhaps it was hours. She did not know and couldn’t bear to find out how long she’d stood out there in the courtyard, drowning in a thick coat and abject sorrow.“Brienne?”[or, let these strong ladies find some solace and friendship and bond over broken hearts and better futures]





	to raze, to sow, to reap

For all the time she had spent in the North, Brienne had never felt more numb.

Perhaps if she was being more logical, she could have pretended it was due to the cold winds chilling her bones behind a thick coat and a scant underdress. She could have maybe gone back to her chambers and warmed herself up in front of the fire. But in the back of her mind, she knew, she _knew_ , the absolute cold that had crawled up her spine and settled, pricking, under her skin, had nothing to do with winter winds.

It was like her heart was broken asunder, so torn apart she simply couldn’t feel anymore. The bitter thing was, when he’d left, she’d still had hope. Hope that he would listen to her, hope that he would smile and jest, even hope that he would turn around at the gates. It was a sweet and sickly flower, hope, that had bloomed in her heart and bound it together until the very last moment, eking tears out until there simply wasn’t any emotion left.

Somewhere along the way, Brienne resolved to stay in the North. Let that flower crackle and wither and die in the chilling air.

 _The Northern air tells you the truth_ , Sansa had said once, when Brienne had asked why she would stand on the battlements for hours on end, even in the coldest of winds. _The Southern air stinks of sugar and lies, but the North? It is harsh and cold, but it is true_. Then she had turned and affixed her stare on Brienne, blue icy eyes filled with the detached sort of pain of wounds long gone.

Brienne found herself meeting that same stare now, albeit blearier with sleep, but not a bit less piercing. She did not know how she got here, to her Lady’s chambers. She did not know a great many things, it seemed, in the haze that had dominated her every sense in the past few minutes. Or perhaps it was hours. She did not know and couldn’t bear to find out how long she’d stood out there in the courtyard, drowning in a thick coat and abject sorrow.

Sansa was just as shocked to see Brienne as Brienne was to see Sansa. “Brienne?”

The familiar voice and word brought Brienne back from the pits of her reverie, if only for a moment, and she started. “My Lady, I -- forgive me. I don’t know -- I don’t know why I’ve come here -- I don’t know --”

To her disgust, Brienne felt the tears well up again. She thought she was _done_. Done with the heartsickness and the sadness and all of it. She was so ready to be done.

Some sense of decorum deeply instilled in her screamed at her for waking her Lady in the dead of night and crying at her doorstep, and Brienne took a shuddering step away, apologizing as best she could.

As Brienne turned, she was met with a soft yet firm hand on her wrist. Brienne choked. _No, the only thing she had left was her honor, her propriety, she could not face her Lady like this, she couldn’t--_

“Brienne.”

All it took was that one damn word to send Brienne falling, falling into the arms of her Lady, bent and cursing and sobbing into fire-red hair, all decorum forgotten.

 

\--

 

It was only after Brienne was warm and slightly more lucid that she realized why her feet had brought her to Sansa’s door.

As soon as she’d collapsed in Sansa’s arms, Sansa had ushered her in, sat her down before her ever-roaring fire, covered her in furs, poured her a glass of milk from the pitcher she kept by her bed, and waited. Even now, she potterred about, stoking the fire or fixing up her bed, waiting in an artfully crafted silence that gave Brienne her space and her voice all at once.

“He left.”

Brienne choked out the words through swollen lips that hurt to feel. She did not say anything more, but she felt Sansa stop behind her and come to the seat at her side.

Sansa took her hands, silently pleading her to continue, but she just couldn’t.

“He _left,_ ” she managed through a wobbly chin, “he just woke up and left and I don’t understand, I _don’t_ \--”

And for the second time, Brienne found herself crying against Sansa while the latter soothingly rubbed her back. This time, however, the voice in the back of her head shouted a little louder, and she went ramrod straight.

“I’m sorry, my Lady, this isn’t proper --”

“Sansa.”

Brienne finally dared to look up at Sansa, whose eyes were no longer the color of hard, chipped ice, but the softer blue of open skies and tumbling rivers and summer-sweet heartbreak. She bent down and sat on her heels in front of Brienne, taking the warrior’s battle-worn hands in her own. With the conviction of a thousand men, she looked at Brienne and her voice thundered across her head --

“He did not deserve you. You are far too good a woman to cry over a man who is not an ounce of the person you are.”

And Brienne remembers, with all the wind knocked out of her, Lady Catelyn Stark, her ferocity and protectiveness when she made Brienne promise to find and protect and save her girls to the end of her life. And now she sees Sansa, all of Lady Catelyn’s fiery passion remade into a wolf kissed by fire, and she thinks, perhaps, tonight, it is Sansa who has saved her.

And so Brienne talks, gummy and halting to maneuver around the rock in her throat, as Sansa perches in the chair next to her and never lets go of her hands. She talks about when it all began, when she was sworn to Lady Catelyn and met Jaime, when she first saw a glimpse of the man who he really was, when she first fell in love with him. She’d told it all to Sansa before, but in impersonal tones that almost made it seem like another passage in a history book. But now she couldn’t possibly keep the emotions out of it, so she marked every story and tried to close the well worn book that was bound in stars and suns and lions.

When she got to the feast and all that had happened afterwards, she looked up to see Sansa’s eyes fluttering. The Lady of Winterfell had known, in that slightly scary way that she simply _knew_ things, what had transpired between Brienne and Jaime that fateful night and all that came after it. Brienne had felt like a young girl in those moments, sneaking around with a knight and sharing conspiratorial looks and soft smirks with Sansa. Now, though, it was all gone, a dream that had long since been shattered but was just now falling apart.

Sansa sighed as Brienne brought her tale to a close, leaving off with a barbed-wire throat her plight in the courtyard.

“Brienne, I - I fear --” Sansa licked her lips, eyes downcast, “I fear it may have been my fault.”

When Brienne frowned, she continued. “I was the one who told him about Daenerys, about Cersei. I even taunted him about her execution.” She looked up, blue eyes gleaming. “I’m sorry. I never meant --”

“No. No, it was his decision,” Brienne said. She takes a long, shuddering breath, hanging her head. “It was his decision.”

_And it was his fault. Not mine. Not. Mine._

Sansa sighed softly. “We truly are a sorry lot, aren’t we.”

Brienne lifted her head. She felt the refutation on her tongue, the simple fact that the Lady of Winterfell was anything but sorry. But the words died at her lips when she saw Sansa staring blankly into the fire, a mirror of the same position Brienne was in.

Sansa looked up, feeling Brienne’s gaze on her, her eyes swimming with tears. “Loving men who do nothing but leave us in return.”

And Brienne realizes, with a heavy heart, that Jon has left too. Jon, whose presence Brienne always noted because Sansa was no longer the stoic lady around him. Jon, who Sansa never stopped speaking about when he was gone. Jon, who had been her Lady’s saving grace and gentle irritation at the same time. Jon, who Sansa tried so hard to help, to protect, all as a way of masking the love that bled out of every tender gaze and diluted every fierce glare.

Jon, who was going South for another woman.

Brienne nearly laughed at the similarities. She looked over at Sansa and tried for a wavering chuckle. “Yes. Yes, we really are.”

In between the soft smiles they shared just then Brienne found a sort of companionship she never realized she missed. She and Sansa were very different, outwardly -- Brienne the imposing, unseemly knight who would never be less than honorable, and Sansa the beautiful, graceful Lady who learned too quickly that both truth and lies were weapons in the world. But they were both women in a world of men, been through all seven hells and back and come out stronger for it, resilient and fierce in their own ways. And really, at the end of it, they were heartbroken girls, staring into the fire for answers they may never get.

“My L -- Sansa,” Brienne began, changing tack at the look Sansa shot her, “Thank you. Thank you for -- for this.”

Sansa tilted her head and looked at her, and Brienne could see the woman beneath the mask, the woman she’d come to love and protect almost like a sister she never had. “Brienne, sometimes -- sometimes we just need a friend.”

 _A friend_ , Brienne thought, thinking back to when Sansa had surmised that she and Jaime were an item. She’d flicked her eyes between her and Jaime then raised an elegant eyebrow, smiling slightly when Brienne blushed in response. Then she’d laid a hand on Brienne’s shoulder, her eyes emotive with pride and happiness and the smallest lingerings of pain. After that, somehow, Brienne had walked taller, prouder, more sure of her place in the world, with a man she loved and a lady who supported her.

She had lost one of those things, dreadfully, achingly. _But_ , she resolved as she clutched Sansa’s hands tighter, she would not lose another.

Sansa filled the silence of Brienne’s lack of answer. “I needn’t be your Lady all the time, Brienne. Especially not now. Not when you’re hurting.”

Brienne looked up at her, at Sansa’s open face and tentative smile that never appeared in the light of day, and she hoped, however stupid and illogical it may be, that the world did not take this small moment of warmth from her. From them _both_.

“I -- I would like that, Sansa. Thank you.”

They stayed together in Sansa’s room, talking at times but simply sitting at others, until the sun came up. Then Sansa’s mask slot into place, and Brienne’s did too, the one of the unfeeling, unforgiving knight, and she stood up and went to the door. But right before she turned the knob and went into the world again, Sansa laid a hand on her arm.

“We will get better, Brienne. Believe it true. We will become what we were again.”

Brienne saw the conviction behind the words that had been borne of nothing but a forceful sort of hope, the faith Sansa had to put in herself. The faith Sansa put in _her_.

“No, my lady. We will become better than that.”

Then she stepped out into the bracing cold, but the truths it flung in her face did not seem so harsh anymore. She looked over Winterfell, over the walls being rebuilt and the people just beginning their day. The world kept spinning.

She would forget him, all trace of him. She would live the life of duty, of honor, that she was always meant to lead. And she would get better.

She had to believe it, for there was no other option.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay I just really, really, wanted some Girl Talk Time. Sansa hasn't had a true friend since like Shae or Margaery and Brienne has maybe never had one and that breaks my heart. I just want the best for my beautiful strong ladies -- 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, please leave kudos and reviews!


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